The Manawatū District Council has been reviewing the provisions of the Manawatū District Plan Residential Zone. This project is known as Plan Change B: General Residential.

Under the provisions of the Resource Management Act, plan provisions are required to be reviewed at least once every 10 years. The Residential Zone provisions are due for review.

Feedback on the draft plan change closes 4pm, Friday 6 December 2024.

Use the summary of proposed changes below to understand the provisions then use the Submission Form to the right to tell us what you think!

Changes to the District Plan can affect everyone working or living in the district. For example, if you're a landowner, they could affect the way you can use, develop, subdivide or build on your property in the future.

Right now, the changes have draft status. This means that we are not at a point where we are formally consulting on the changes, and the changes have no legal impact on a person’s rights or obligations. Feedback from our community will help us further shape our draft changes, ahead of formal consultation in the near future.

Note that some of these changes (such as zone names) have been driven by national direction from central government, and therefore contain aspects that MDC cannot change or have influence over. Where this is the case, we have included references to the national policy statements for more information.

It is important to be aware of the changes and provide your feedback.

Key changes proposed under the first phase of Draft Plan Change E, and on which your feedback is now being sought, include:

• Updating objectives and policies to reflect a new approach of enabling housing choice within the GRZ and ensuring good design outcomes are achieved.
  
• Updating the bulk and location permitted activity standards to reflect current best practices for residential development.
  
• Including explicit provision for, and introducing a new consenting framework for, Medium Density Development.
  
• Including explicit direction that the management of stormwater within new developments has been considered and resolved before development occurs.
  
• Including a new definition of Medium Density Development.
  
• Consequential changes to the Subdivision Chapter to reflect the changes made above, including new objectives and policies, revised matters of discretion, a new Medium Density Development framework, a change to the minimum lot size.